RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Department of Transportation will again attempt to sell a group of former Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus railcars, about a month after four of the cars were destroyed in a fire.
The Statesville Independent Tribune reports the state has steeply discounted its asking price for five remaining cars, which were undamaged in the March 10 fire outside the town of Spring Hope [see “Former Ringling Bros. railcars burn …,” Trains News Wire, March 10, 2022]. In a 2020 auction, it set a minimum bid of $45,000 each for eight of the cars, and $55,000 for the ninth car, which was filled with tools. In the latest auction, the minimum bid for each of the five cars built by St. Louis Car Co. in 1964 is $6,588. Bids are due April 18 at 10 a.m. EDT.
The state bought the cars for a total of $383,000 in 2017, planning to refurbish them for use in Raleigh-Charlotte Piedmont service. When federal grants instead allowed the state to order new railcars, the circus cars became surplus.
The state is also selling two other surplus cars — a 1965 baggage car built in 1965, with a minimum bid of $4,883, and a former U.S. Army hospital car built in 1953 that has been stripped to the shell, with a minimum bid of $18,425.
More information on the auction is available at the state’s surplus equipment website by clicking on “items on bid” in the “railway equipment” category.
“A 1965 baggage care built in 1965”?
Yeah. Now a 1964 baggage built in 1965 is really something.
A large portion of of 2022 model cars were built in 2021.
State should donate that equipment to museums. Circus World may be interested I would think.
Government process in full bloom.